Do you know your plastic footprint? Join others from around the world. Collect your plastic waste (both recyclable and non) for one week or more. Then photograph, tally, and post it here.

What can we learn about our habits and lifestyles by examining our waste? And what changes can each of us make to leave the planet a little less trashy?

June 22, 2009

Vanessa Week 3 Plastic consumption

I’ve been a bit oh um I guess the only word is lazy, I have been collecting my plastic in week piles but have not done anything with them, so in the next few days I will hopefully get off my lazy bum and post the other 3 weeks of plastic tallies I have. So here is my 3rd week tally:

May 25th to 31st

-solo cup that I had been using to hold some all purpose ecover cleanser

-little plastic bag from a cleaning pad, don’t plan on buying these ever again, they are pretty useless

-plastic container from new toothbrush, my husbands and a toothbrush he got from the dentist

-six pack ring, hubby brought 3 cans home from work, he worked late and the got dinner for him, he brought me some pizza and sodas

-ziploc bag from something finished in the cupboards

-2 grocery bags from takeout

-2 produce bags will be reused for kitty litter

-2 ice cream plastic seals, mmmmmm haagen daz and probably another one by the end of the night, have some dark chocolate waiting in the freezer for me

-plastic tape from sweet potato

-2 meat packages

-bag from rolls, will be reused for kitty litter

-2 styrofoam cups with 2 lids and 2 straws from take out

-pasta package, I wish the store I shopped at had bulk pastas, but I use plastic bags for bulk items still so it would only slightly lower the amount of plastic bags

-honey bottle, bottle recyclable lid is not

-bag of sugar, didn’t use it up but put it into a glass jar to keep on my counter

-big bag of kitty litter, not pictured because it was used to clean the boxes and promptly taken out

-shoyu (soy sauce) bottle, it is #7 plastic, from now on we will be buying the smaller bottle that is glass so we can reuse it or recycle it

-trash bag from kitchen garbage can, usually only take trash out once every two weeks because our trash can is too big for our current trash making and it started smelling very badly this week

-styrofoam box from take out, place uses plastic whether you eat in or out more if you eat in actually because they serve their burritos on styrofoam trays if you eat there and wrap it in paper if you get it to go and serve everything in the same containter for take out or to go for the most part

It seems that the honey bottle is the only recyclable item out of 29 items.

Post navigation

I will definitely add it to my list. I have a large list of movies/books I "should" watch/read so I don't know when I will actually get to it but it will be on the list. The problem with fast food for me is that I can't go to the store and buy just $1 worth of stuff to make a hamburger. I can go and buy the ingredients and it might actually end up costing me less than a $1 in the long run because with what I do buy I can make much more than a single burger. At the time right before a paycheck I don't have the money to go spend on a whole bunch of burgers or I can't feasibly spend that money even if I do have it because I don't want to eat only hamburgers until I do get paid.I think it is something I can try and cut back on but it will take more planning on my part and I am not such a good planner, it's all there and I know I need to do it but I just don't because I spend so much time worrying and thinking about it I no longer have the energy to act on it. As long as I don't make it more of a habit I can live with it the way it is now.

It has a 7 on the bottom. I was as equally surprised. I checked it a million times. I have already thrown it out, I have not been holding onto any of this stuff for longer than it takes me to photograph all of it but next time I am at the store I will look at the bottle again. I see a lot of 7's that I wouldn't think they are 7's, the plastic that gerber baby food was in had a 7 on the bottom, recently there has been no number on the cups. I don't have a baby, we use baby food at work when we run out of other foods so it's not a regular thing I look at and sometimes we do buy the glass bottles. I thought I used a lot more plastic than this and I thought a lot more of it was things I could easily avoid, but I guess all the small changes I have made in the last year or so have made a difference. Mostly due to the store that we now shop in with its bulk bins and it doesn't carry as much plastic items as you would find in a big store. I just really need to cut back on fast food but that seems to be directly related to money and the time right before a pay check when we don't have a lot and although it would probably be cheaper to make our own food I think the stress and anxiety surrounding our financial situation drives us to fast food as a "comfort" food.

Are you sure that shoyu bottle is #7? #7 is usually either polycarbonate, which is very hard plastic like Nalgene bottles, or else compostable plastic. That bottle looks like #2 to me. I'll bet it can be recycled. Want to recheck?So, is there anything in particular you learned from collecting your plastic in week #3? I'm so glad you're doing this challenge for multiple weeks!